06/2020
Script
Recently American engineering and robotics company Boston Dynamics made their robot Spot commercially available for anyone to buy. For roughly $75000 you get a yellow robot with four legs, that could actually be best described as a mechanical dog. Spot can walk up to three miles per hour, climb terrain and stairs, scan the surrounding area with the help of his 360-degree camera. And with a lot of intelligence programmed in, he can avoid obstacles on his own while also reacting dynamically to any given situation. But with the robotic age being so close there are a few questions we have to ask ourselves: In what ways could we implement robots like Spot into tasks currently done by humans? And what tasks do robots still struggle with? Where are the current limitations of industrial robots?
I’m your host Julian Simon and this is Technology Talk.
(INTRO)
One of the major benefits of introducing robots to our workforce is, well, that they’re just robots. They are replaceable and, compared to human life they are dirt cheap. That makes them a prime candidate for dangerous, inaccessible, remote or hazardous environments like decommissioned nuclear sites, offshore oil rigs, mines or even hospitals with COVID-19 patients. Equipped with different sensors like for example a gas sensor, a thermal camera, a radiation sensor or even just a normal camera a robot could do the same work a human does right now, with the added bonus that human life doesn’t get endangered. So, in that regard robots can actually contribute to increased worker safety.
Another benefit of implementing these robots is that they eliminate mindless tasks. For example, if you want a worker to take a walk through the factory floors every day to make sure everything works like it’s supposed to, there is the danger of a routine setting in, which may then lead to oversight of critical issues. A human is also inconsistent in that way because if their tired, stressed or just bored, the quality of their decision making could suffer.
A robot on the other hand could be programmed to walk the predefined route at a certain time every day. Robots don’t care if it’s 4 AM or PM, a human very much does. While walking that route, the robot could then check predefined parameters with its cameras (like for example reading an analog gauge or checking temperature with a thermal camera). It could also be listening for anomalies with its microphones (like a rattling or grinding noise in a machine). So, robots could improve the current workflow while also freeing up humans to do more productive things.
So, I’ve explained in what ways a robot could replace tasks traditionally done by humans. But what about the things robots still struggle with? What are the weaknesses of a robot?
Well to answer this question, we first have to look at what robots are good at. Robots are very good at doing the same task over and over again, with great accuracy and repeatability. They are usually not good when it comes to dynamically reacting to a certain situation. Spot is actually an exception in that case. It took Boston Dynamics a lot of time to make Spot react to unaccounted scenarios, like someone pushing him or a slippery floor. Traditional robot arms, like the ones you often see in car factories struggle with this even more. Whenever something behaves in a different way than one of these robots was programmed to handle, the robot is just gonna stick to its programmed path, usually resulting in a crash. And once that happens its game over. For example, here is Elon Musk talking about the one time one of the robots in a Tesla factory crashed, resulting in the whole production line going down.
(ELON MUSK CLIP)
So yeah, in summary, robots can be really useful, especially when they’re used to support humans, but it also depends on how their deployed. Leaving a robot like Boston Dynamics Spot to just walk around is probably fine, but there are other scenarios where you’d definitely want a human there to check if the robot is doing its task correctly and also intervene if the robot faults.
Robots have come a long way, and it’s truly astonishing what they are already able to do. But it would be a mistake to think they’re perfect and to trust them 100% of the time. Because the robot can only be as smart, as the human that programmed him.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Technology Talk, have a great day.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Sources and additional content
More about using robots in the corona pandemic:
More about using robots in the corona pandemic:
Tesla Factory Tour:
Buy your own Spot:
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